The Claverings Part 18

"You might add my four brothers," said Florence, who saw no shame in the fact that they were all engaged in the same business.

"Good heaven!" exclaimed Sir Hugh, and after that he did not say much more to Florence.

The rector had taken Lady Clavering in to dinner, and they two did manage to carry on between them some conversation respecting the parish affairs. Lady Clavering was not active among the poor--nor was the rector himself, and perhaps neither of them knew how little the other did; but they could talk Clavering talk, and the parson was willing to take for granted his neighbor's good will to make herself agreeable. But Mrs. Clavering, who sat between Sir Hugh and Archie, had a very bad time of it. Sir Hugh spoke to her once during the dinner, saying that he hoped she was satisfied with her daughter's marriage; but even this he said in a tone that seemed to imply that any such satisfaction must rest on very poor grounds. "Thoroughly satisfied," said Mrs. Clavering, drawing herself up and looking very unlike the usual Mrs. Clavering of the rectory. After that there was no further conversation between her and Sir Hugh. "The worst of him to me is always this," she said that evening to her husband, "that he puts me so much out of conceit with myself. If I were with him long I should begin to find myself the most disagreeable woman in England!" "Then pray don't be with him long," said the rector.

But Archie made conversation throughout dinner, and added greatly to Mrs. Clavering's troubles by doing so. There was nothing in common between them, but still Archie went on laboriously with his work. It was a duty which he recognized, and at which he would work hard. When he had used up Mary's marriage, a subject which he economized carefully, so that he brought it down to the roast saddle of mutton, he began upon Harry's match. When was it to be? Where were they to live? Was there any money? What manner of people were the Burtons? Perhaps he might get over it? This he whispered very lowly, and it was the question next in sequence to that about the money. When, in answer to this, Mrs.

Clavering with considerable energy declared that anything of that kind would be a misfortune of which there seemed to be no chance whatever, he recovered himself as he thought very skilfully. "Oh, yes; of course; that's just what I meant; a doosed nice girl I think her; a doosed nice girl, all round." Archie's questions were very laborious to his fellow-laborer in the conversation, because he never allowed one of them to pa.s.s without an answer. He always recognized the fact that he was working hard on behalf of society, and, as he used to say himself that he had no idea of pulling all the coach up the hill by his own shoulders. Whenever, therefore, he had made his effort he waited for his companion's, looking closely into her face, cunningly driving her on, so that she also should pull her share of the coach. Before dinner was over Mrs. Clavering found the hill to be very steep, and the coach to be very heavy. "I'll bet you seven to one," said he--and this was his parting speech as Mrs. Clavering rose up at Lady Clavering's nod--"I'll bet you seven to one, that the whole box and dice of them are married before me--or at any rate as soon; and I don't mean to remain single much longer, I can tell you." The "box and dice of them" was supposed to comprise Harry, Florence, f.a.n.n.y and Lady Ongar, of all of whom mention had been made, and that saving clause--"at any rate as soon"--was cunningly put in, as it had occurred to Archie that he perhaps might be married on the same day as one of those other persons. But Mrs.

Clavering was not compelled either to accept or reject the bet, as she was already moving before the terms had been fully explained to her.

Lady Clavering as she went out of the room stopped a moment behind Harry's chair and whispered a word to him. "I want to speak to you before you go to-night." Then she pa.s.sed on.

"What's that Hermione was saying?" asked Sir Hugh, when he had shut the door.

"She only told me that she wanted to speak to me."

"She has always got some cursed secret," said Sir Hugh. "If there, is anything I hate, it's a secret." Now this was hardly fair, for Sir Hugh was a man very secret in his own affairs, never telling his wife anything about them. He kept two banker's accounts, so that no banker's clerk might know how he stood as regarded ready money, and hardly treated even his lawyer with confidence.

He did not move from his own chair, so that, after dinner, his uncle was not next to him. The places left by the ladies were not closed up, and the table was very uncomfortable.

"I see they're going to have another week after this with the Pytchley,"

said Sir Hugh to his brother.

"I suppose they will--or ten days. Things ain't very early this year."

"I think I shall go down. It's never any use trying to hunt here after the middle of March."

"You're rather short of foxes, are you not?" said the rector, making an attempt to join the conversation.

"Upon my word I don't know anything about it," said Sir Hugh.

"There are foxes at Clavering," said Archie, recommencing his duty. "The hounds will be here on Sat.u.r.day, and I'll bet three to one I find a fox before twelve o'clock, or, say, half-past twelve--that is, if they'll draw punctual and let me do as I like with the pack. I'll bet a guinea we find, and a guinea we run, and a guinea we kill; that is, you know, if they'll really look for a fox."

The rector had been willing to fall into a little hunting talk for the sake of society, but he was not prepared to go the length that Archie proposed to take him, and therefore the subject dropped.

"At any rate I shan't stay here after to-morrow," said Sir Hugh, still addressing himself to his brother. "Pa.s.s the wine, will you, Harry; that is, if your father is drinking any."

"No more wine for me," said the rector, almost angrily.

"Liberty Hall," said Sir Hugh; "everybody does as they like about that.

I mean to have another bottle of claret. Archie, ring the bell, will you?" Captain Clavering, though he was further from the bell than his elder brother, got up and did as he was bid. The claret came, and was drunk almost in silence. The rector, though he had a high opinion of the cellar of the great house, would take none of the new bottle, because he was angry. Harry filled his gla.s.s, and attempted to say something. Sir Hugh answered him by a monosyllable, and Archie offered to bet him two to one that he was wrong.

"I'll go into the drawing-room," said the rector, getting up.

"All right," said Sir Hugh; "you'll find coffee there, I daresay. Has your father given up wine?" he asked, as soon as the door was closed.

"Not that I know of," said Harry.

"He used to take as good a whack as any man I know. The bishop hasn't put his embargo on that as well as the hunting, I hope?" To this Harry made no answer.

"He's in the blues, I think," said Archie. "Is there anything the matter with him, Harry?"

"Nothing as far as I know."

"If I were left at Clavering all the year, with nothing to do, as he is, I think I should drink a good deal of wine," said Sir Hugh. "I don't know what it is--something in the air, I suppose--but everybody always seems to me to be dreadfully dull here. You ain't taking any wine either. Don't stop here out of ceremony, you know, if you want to go after Miss Burton." Harry took him at his word, and went after Miss Burton, leaving the brothers together over their claret.

The two brothers remained drinking their wine, but they drank it in an uncomfortable fashion, not saying much to each other for the first ten minutes after the other Claverings were gone. Archie was in some degree afraid of his brother, and never offered to make any bets with him. Hugh had once put a stop to this altogether. "Archie," he had said, "pray understand that there is no money to be made out of me, at any rate not by you. If you lost money to me, you wouldn't think it necessary to pay; and I certainly shall lose none to you." The habit of proposing to bet had become with Archie so much a matter of course, that he did not generally intend any real speculation by his offers; but with his brother he had dropped even the habit. And he seldom began any conversation with Hugh unless he had some point to gain--an advance of money to ask, or some favor to beg in the way of shooting, or the loan of a horse. On such occasions he would commence the negotiation with his usual diplomacy, not knowing any other mode of expressing his wishes; but he was aware that his brother would always detect his manoeuvres, and expose them before he had got through his first preface: and, therefore, as I have said, he was afraid of Hugh.

"I don't know what's come to my uncle of late," said Hugh, after a while. "I think I shall have to drop them at the rectory altogether."

"He never had much to say for himself."

"But he has a mode of expressing himself without speaking, which I do not choose to put up with at my table. The fact is they are going to the mischief at the rectory. His eldest girl has just married a curate."

"Fielding has got a living."

"It's something very small then, and I suppose f.a.n.n.y will marry that prig they have here. My uncle himself never does any of his own work, and now Harry is going to make a fool of himself. I used to think he would fall on his legs."

"He is a clever fellow."

"Then why is he such a fool as to marry such a girl as this, without money, good looks, or breeding? It's well for you he is such a fool, or else you wouldn't have a chance."

"I don't see that at all," said Archie.

"Julia always had a sneaking fondness for Harry, and if he had waited would have taken him now. She was very near making a fool of herself with him once, before Lord Ongar turned up."

To this Archie said nothing, but he changed color, and it may almost be said of him that he blushed. Why he was affected in so singular a manner by his brother's words will be best explained by a statement of what took place in the back drawing-room a little later in the evening.

When Harry reached the drawing-room he went up to Lady Clavering, but she said nothing to him then of especial notice. She was talking to Mrs.

Clavering while the rector was reading--or pretending to read--a review and the two girls were chattering together in another part of the room.

Then they had coffee, and after a while the two other men came in from their wine. Lady Clavering did not move at once, but she took the first opportunity of doing so, when Sir Hugh came up to Mrs. Clavering and spoke a word to her. A few minutes after that, Harry found himself closeted with Lady Clavering, in a little room detached from the others, though the doors between the two were open.

"Do you know," said Lady Clavering, "that Sir Hugh has asked Julia to come here?" Harry paused a moment, and then acknowledged that he did know it.

"I hope you did not advise her to refuse."

"I advise her! Oh dear, no. She did not ask me anything about it."

"But she has refused. Don't you think she has been very wrong?"

"It is hard to say," said Harry. "You know I thought it very cruel that Hugh did not receive her immediately on her return. If I had been he, I should have gone to Paris to meet her."

"It's no good talking of that now, Harry. Hugh is hard, and we all know that. Who feels it most do you think; Julia or I? But as he has come round, what can she gain by standing off? Will it not be the best thing for her to come here?"

"I don't know that she has much to gain by it."

"Harry, do you know that we have a plan?" "Who is we?" Harry asked; but she went on without noticing his question. "I tell you, because I believe you can help us more than any one, if you will. Only for your engagement with Miss Burton I should not mention it to you; and, but for that, the plan would, I daresay, be of no use."

"What is the plan?" said Harry, very gravely. A vague idea of what the plan might be had come across Harry's mind during Lady Clavering's last speech.